


talking points

by krakens



Category: BrainDead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8055835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krakens/pseuds/krakens
Summary: Tumblr prompts & other short pieces.





	1. things you said at the kitchen table

Laurel is a pretty low-maintenance date; she enjoys herself in a dive bar playing pool just as much as she does at a five-star restaurant. She doesn’t even seem to mind staying in, which is what they’re doing now. The remains of their take-out dinner are scattered across her kitchen table and she scrolls through her phone silently as he picks at the scraps of his meal.

She makes a sound halfway between an involuntary laugh and a consternated grunt. “Did you see what Mike Pence said today?” she asks.

Deriding Trump and his surrounding media circus has been a mounting pastime of hers since the conventions. She especially likes to pick on the vice presidential candidate and has made a habit of referring to him as “Indiana Governor, Mike Pence” in a lightly accusatory fashion, as if Pence’s existence in the public sphere is somehow personally Gareth’s fault for being from Indiana.

“No talking about politics at the dinner table,” he says by way of rebuttal (his last standard response, which was to tease her for becoming emotionally involved in the election cycle, stopped being effective a few weeks ago, and he’s been floundering since). She shoots him a look.

“At the _dinner table_?” she asks. “We’re sitting in my kitchen eating pizza. You’re not even using a plate,” she says, gesturing towards his side of the table with her phone, where he has indeed abandoned his uneaten pizza crust in the lid of the box.

“What is a dinner table but a table at which dinner is being eaten?” he ponders.

“Listen to the headline, Descartes,” she says. But he cuts her off before she can read it.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Having boundaries is important to a healthy relationship, especially if you disagree on something like politics.”

She pushes her chair out from the table and stands up, walking about five feet to lean in the doorway of her bedroom. “Did you hear what the governor from the great state of Indiana said today?” she asks.

“No talking about Mike Pence while I’m eating pizza,” he says after a beat.

“You can’t make up a new boundary every time a Republican says something dumb on national television,” she says.

“You want me to pull up Ella Pollack’s latest sound bite?” he asks, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “Because I think she equated animal shelters with POW camps yesterday.”

“That’s not fair,” Laurel says. “She has brain bugs.”

“Maybe Pence has brain bugs,” Gareth says.

“I don’t think he does,” Laurel says in the cadence of a faux-apology.

“This is liberal bias in action,” he says.

“Come on, read it,” she whines in a good-natured way, holding her phone out for him to take. “I want to hear you try to spin it.”

He takes the phone from her. She sits down on his lap and wraps one arm around his shoulders so she can read along on her phone with him. But if she wanted him to focus on the news article, she’s made a severely counter-productive move.

“This is my night off, Laurel. Why are you making me rationalize the Trump campaign in my very limited free time?” he sighs.

“I didn’t make you this way,” she says, running her fingers through his hair as he idly scrolls through the article without reading it. “You choose to be this way.”

“I had an idea for a new boundary,” he says, setting her phone down on the table.

“Is it ‘no politico.com in the bedroom’?” she guesses.

“It is,” he says.

She takes a second to pretend to think about it. “That,” she finally says. “Is a boundary I can get behind.”


	2. things you said while we were driving

If there’s one thing that Laurel doesn’t miss about LA, it’s all the driving. And since moving back to DC, she’s done an admirable job of avoiding it. Work is close enough that the commute isn’t a problem, and even the few times she’s been up to Baltimore she’s gone with Luke, who comes with a driver.

But now it’s just her and Gareth heading up to meet her mother for dinner, and she’s begun to regret the chunk of cash she spent having her car shipped cross-country only to collect dust in her building’s garage, so she figured she might as well drive. But she forgot to account for two things: Maryland’s idiotic drivers and her road rage.

“God,” Gareth manages to mutter under his breath instead of exclaim as Laurel guns her Buick around a merging semi-truck.

“What?” she asks, in a tone that she feels is deservedly snippy.

“Nothing,” he says quickly.

“No, please,” she says. “If you’ve got constructive criticism about my driving I’d love to hear it.”

“I would never criticize your driving,” he says, and then adds in an aside just loud enough for her to hear: “… while I was in the car.”

“Smart man,” she says, glancing over at him. He looks like he’d be more comfortable with a roller coaster lap bar; he’s gripping his own knee so tightly that he’s nearly white-knuckled. “Seriously, you look like you’re about to throw up.”

“I’m fine,” he says.

“If you want to drive…”

“Oh no,” he says, the tense line of his shoulders momentarily relaxing. “Driving was your idea. You’re not getting out of it.”

“I just want you to be comfortable,” she says with a shrug.

“Anyway, your terrifying driving isn’t what I was worried about.”

“No?”

“No,” he says. “I was thinking about dinner.”

“What, my mom?” Laurel asks, only slightly distracted by the guy that’s tailgating her. “You don’t have to worry about my mom. Nothing I ever do will ever be enough to impress her, and she may never truly approve of me, even though I’m her own flesh and blood.” She decides not to mention that her mother has been even _more_ high-maintenance since the separation. She blames it on her mother’s questionable decision to stay with her sister in Baltimore instead of renting her own place. Laurel counts her small blessings that Aunt Susan isn’t joining them for dinner; she wants to wait a few more months before subjecting Gareth to the extended family. “But she’s sweet.”

“She sounds sweet,” he deadpans.

“I’m serious. She’ll be nice to you.”

“Being nice to someone doesn’t mean you like them, necessarily,” he says.

“Oh, Gareth,” Laurel begins faux-apologetically. “She’s absolutely not going to _like_ you.”

He lapses into an agitated silence and they pass two freeway exits before she decides she has to put an end to his brooding herself.

“Hey,” she says. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“It’s not a big deal if your mother doesn’t like me?” he asks, and she can’t help but find his incredulity a little bit endearing.

“She’s literally never liked a single one of my boyfriends,” Laurel says, and Gareth lets out an irritated, huffy breath. “I’m just trying to lower your expectations for the evening to a reasonable level.”

 “What’s your best-case scenario?” he asks. In her peripheral vision she can see he’s fidgeting with his phone, which can only be a nervous tick since he’s fielding all his calls through his assistant for the evening.

“Nobody brings up politics at any point in time and she at least considers the possibility that I’m not just dating you to piss her off,” Laurel responds almost instantaneously, hitting her turn signal.

He laughs. “You’ve thought about this.”

“Probably more than you have,” she says. “Son of a _bitch_!” she adds loudly and unceremoniously when someone cuts her off right before she changes lanes and then proceeds to hover at her four’o’clock instead of passing her. “I’m going to run this guy off the road.”

“Don’t,” he says.

“I’m not going to literally—” She sucks in sharp breath and lets it out slowly. “I hate Maryland,” she says.

“We’re almost there,” he says.

“I’m going to miss the exit,” she says. “And God _forbid_ we be late to dinner.”

“That’ll tank your whole plan for the evening,” he says.

“You have no idea,” she says, making the lane change just in time to catch the exit. “But, hey. If Mom’s reading me the riot act for being late, maybe she’ll forget to give me a hard time about you.”

“It’ll be fine, Laurel,” he says as she comes to a halting stop at a red light.

She lets out a breath that’s been coiled up in her chest since she got on the freeway forty minutes ago. “I was supposed to be making you feel better, not the other way around.”

“It’s fine,” he says.

“No, seriously,” she says, her head lolling back against the head rest so she can look at him. “I don’t care if my mom likes you and you shouldn’t either. You know why?”

“Why?” he asks, although he’s clearly just humoring her.

“Because _I_ like you,” she says, and he finally glances over at her and holds her gaze. “And my opinion is clearly at least twice as important to you as anyone else’s, or we wouldn’t be in the car right now.”

“Eyes on the road,” he says, although he cracks a smile as he glances away from her. “The light’s green.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“But next time we do this?” he begins, and she does her very best not to poke fun at him for planning their _next_ dinner with her mother. “We’re definitely taking the train.”


	3. things you said i wasn't meant to hear

Christmas at the Ritter household is a production.

Not in the same way she’s used to her Christmases being _productions_ – when she was a child Christmastime meant stiff, posed family portraits, an artificial tree that arrived perfectly trimmed, and dinner eaten in the nicer of the house’s two dining rooms. Laurel always looked forward to it, anyway, though, because it was one event her father never missed.

Here, the whole set-up is different, and the change is frankly comforting for her first holiday season without him.

They’re not actually at Gareth’s parents’ place – they drove an hour to some uncle’s or cousin’s house, chosen presumably for its large living room. He has a _lot_ of relatives. A few of them just brought a real pine tree through the front door, and they’re all folksy enough that Laurel would probably believe them if they told her they just chopped it down themselves.

She and Cathy have been overseeing some of the younger family members in the very important task of stringing together popcorn garlands. But they’re running low on popcorn, so she volunteers to make the short trip to the kitchen to restock.

It’s much quieter at the back of the house than the front, so much so that she’s easily able to overhear Gareth and his mother talking in the kitchen. She hangs back out of curiosity, not wanting to interrupt even though she knows she probably shouldn’t be eavesdropping on them.

“Just – I’m serious – don’t bring it up,” Gareth says.

“Oh,” his mother chides, scoldingly, as if to say _would I do that to you?_

The answer is evidently _yes, you would_ , because he continues. “Not even as a joke.”

“I won’t,” she promises.

“Good,” he says.

“But the two of you do seem happy,” she continues after a second, and Laurel doesn’t have to be able to see him to imagine how he glances up at the ceiling in exasperation. She leans her head back against the wall and bites down a chuckle.

“We are,” he says.

“And it’s been over a year now,”

“Almost a year and a half, even,” he agrees.

“And – look, honey, I’m not saying this has to be _soon_ or anything, but you know, for someday – if you want it, I do still have grandma’s wedding ring,” she says.

“Aw, jeez,” he says, and Laurel adds that to her list of adorable ways she’s caught him trying to avoid swearing in front of his parents so far this trip.

“It’s a very nice diamond ring, and a family heirloom to boot,” she says.

“That’s okay, Mom,” he says. Laurel’s not quite sure if she appreciates his staunch determination to shut down the conversation or if it stings just a little, how easily he dismisses the idea, but she tries not to dwell on it.

“She seems like the kind of girl who’d prefer something vintage,” Nora says. “She’s very stylish.”

“She is,” Gareth agrees, sounding trapped in the conversation.

“Although maybe she’d be expecting something new and expensive,” Nora says before adding in a conspiratorial tone: “I know her family’s got money.”

“Mom,” Gareth complains.

“None of my business, I know,” she says. “But you should really look at it before you go.”

“Mom, I love you, and I really appreciate the gesture, but I don’t need your grandma’s ring,” he says again.

His mother tuts. “You might change your mind.”

“I already have one,” he says, and the two of them go so quiet that Laurel’s afraid they might hear her heart pounding from the hall. She squeezes the empty popcorn bowl closer to her chest like it might muffle the sound.

After a beat of silence, his mother continues.

“So when you said _it’s complicated_ you meant…” she teases.

“I meant it’s complicated,” he laughs.

“It can’t be _that_ complicated, if you bought her a ring,” his mom says.

“There’s a lot of stuff still, you know, up in the air,” Gareth replies, sounding rather sobered since the last time he spoke. They’re almost whispering now, which is fair given the clandestine nature of the conversation, but Laurel has to strain to hear this next bit: “I’m just waiting for the right time.”

“Well don’t wait too long,” Nora says. “Women don’t like that, you know. Men say they’re waiting for the right time, women say the right time was six months ago. They get restless.”

“Laurel’s not like that,” Gareth says.

“I’m just saying,” she says.

“Well, don’t,” Gareth says. “Not to her. And don’t tell Dad any of this either, alright? At least not until after we leave. He’s not good at keeping secrets.”

“No, he’s not,” Nora agrees with a long-suffering fondness that makes Laurel crack a smile despite herself.

Laurel realizes with a half-second to spare that they’re preparing to leave the kitchen, which means she’s at serious risk of being caught. So plucking together all the nonchalance she can in the spur of the moment, she releases her deathgrip on the popcorn bowl and enters the kitchen holding it normally.

“We are dangerously low on popcorn,” she says, maybe not entirely selling it since she won’t meet either of their eyes.

Gareth’s mother clears her throat. “Well, I’ll let you two alone,” she says. It’s not much different than her standard reaction to finding herself in a room with the two of them, and that makes Laurel wonder abruptly what else Gareth talks to his mom about when she’s not around.

“What was that about?” Laurel pries gently as she crosses the kitchen to set the bowl down next to the microwave.

“Ah, nothing,” he says, which is an even less convincing lie than her popcorn announcement.

“Oh,” she says, punching in the numbers on the microwave and hitting start.

“Why don’t you just use the popcorn button?” he asks.

“You never use the popcorn button, Gareth,” she says, pointing to the box. “It says so in the instructions.”

He crosses the kitchen to join her and picks the box up. His hand comes to rest absently on the small of her back and she leans into him. “I’ve never actually read the back of the box,” he says.

“That explains why everyone’s been telling me I’m way better at making popcorn than you,” she says. He laughs, and sets the box down so he can focus his full attention on her. But she still can’t quite look him in the eye, and he notices something is wrong, like he always does.

“You okay?” he asks, rubbing small circles into her back. She draws breath to answer, knowing that the right thing to do is to tell him she overheard the conversation, but she’s not perfect and she doesn’t have the guts to do it. Because – he has a ring, that he bought for _her_ , and that’s a little terrifying. And if she brings it up, they’ll have to talk about it. She’s somewhere in the neighborhood of panicky when he continues: “I know my family’s… a lot.”

“Oh,” she says. “No, I’m having a good time.”

But he barrels on. “My parents have been hounding me to bring you home since last Christmas, but I have this recurring nightmare where everyone’s eating dinner and someone starts talking politics and it all devolves, you know, Animal House style. And then you’d leave me and I’d have mashed potatoes in my hair and…”

She pecks him on the lips to shut him up, which is the only proven method she knows for getting him out of these elaborate hypothetical scenarios he spins. “You can’t get rid of me that easy,” she tells him as she turns away to hit stop on the microwave. The next thing she says, she says to the bag of still-steaming popcorn, because it’s easier to look at than he is. “And I like your family.”

“Good,” he says, and she chances a glance over at him. He’s fixing her with an intense look, both pleased and furtive, and she wants very much to ask what he’s waiting for, exactly, but she doesn’t risk it. He looks away first, and hands her the popcorn bowl so she can empty the bag into it, but he doesn’t meet her eye again even though he’s still smiling. “That’s good.”


End file.
